What is with the wooden cow?

The statues of the cows are quite new additions to a beautiful little park in West Sussex. Not having been to the park for sometime, the cows seem to have appeared from nowhere, and quickly become part of the landscape. Worth Park was once the ancient forest of Worth, before making way for the estate owned by the Wiston family and later, purchased by Joseph Montefiore. The Montefiore family are said to have grazed herds of prize-winning Jersey cows on the parkland. Ha-has (walled ditches) were commonly built to protect the formal gardens from straying animals and for this reason, the wooden cows have been situated close to the haha.

Seeing them for the first time on the Beginners Poetry Course, I was uncertain of them; I wanted them to be real, not the fakes that they were, wooden, inanimate. But I couldn’t forget them; their presence niggled at me and I knew that they were to be the subject of at least one poem. There was a homely feel to these oddities, a serenity that invited confidences from passers-by.

And that was where it all began.

But why add this today? I spoke to someone this morning of someone who had found the poems at the park and asked me if I was the poet. I had almost forgotten about the poems I wrote then and it was so nice to be reminded.

For more information about the park and its history, http://www.worthparkfriends.org/our%20park.htm

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Have you always wanted to write poetry but don’t know where to start? Why not come along to this friendly series of FREE poetry workshops exploring the heritage and beautiful natural setting of Worth Park with our Poet in Residence, Patricia M Osborne. There are three workshops – on March 10, March 16th and March 24th. All are from 11-1.15pm. Then on Monday 8th April there will be a sharing coffee morning to celebrate our work.

The workshops will take place in our visitor centre, Ridleys Court, Crawley RH10 3DH. Please contact Patricia for more information on Patricia.m.osbornewriter@gmail.com. Free but booking essential – please contact edwina.livesey@crawley.gov.uk to book.